An embodiment of the present invention relates generally to a fitness and rehabilitation device designed for use by children, adults, seniors, athletes and sedentary people. More particularly, the fitness and rehabilitation device of the present invention is suitable for use by any individual who may benefit from improved proprioceptive and sensorimotor skills, balance and overall fitness. The fitness and rehabilitation device of the present invention is also suitable for use by any individual who wants or needs to facilitate motor learning, improve reaction time, and/or improve equilibrium strategies. The fitness and rehabilitation device of the present invention also provides a key health benefit, as it is well known that faster muscle reaction is better protection than strength alone for the prevention of injury. The fitness and rehabilitation device of the present invention may be used as a stand-alone device or may be integrated into a routine with other devices.
The sensory system plays a key role in proper motor function. Body movement (i.e., motor function) efficiency can be honed through training a subconscious, complex sequence of muscle activation and timing specific to the task at hand. As such, a comprehensive exercise training or rehabilitation program should include reflexively training for unpredictability.
Sensorimotor training tools provide stimulation and integration of improved movement and motor strategies. Compared with strength training alone, sensorimotor training has been proven to better improve proprioception (e.g., sense of position, posture and movement), muscle reaction, postural stability and strength. Further, the ability to maintain balance is fundamental to achieving more advanced perceptual motor activities. Balance mechanisms, along with visual and tactile information and proprioceptive feedback, provide the knowledge for perceiving body orientation in space.
However, balance, defined as the ability to maintain equilibrium while engaging in various locomotor or non-locomotor activities, may be partially or totally deficient for some people. In particular, the elderly often lack the postural adjustments and equilibrium reactions which comprise the basic movement patterns necessary for balance and proper posture. Where these reactions are deficient, they must be taught or developed through appropriate exercise and/or physical therapy. Training automatic reactions to unexpected loads best assists in developing these reactions or basic controls.
Prior art devices for such exercise and/or physical therapy activities are known. However, generally stated, the known prior art devices merely provide a means for improving an individual's balancing skills on a particular device and do not simulate the balance conditions actually encountered in everyday life, which is stability underfoot and instability in the rest of the body. Other prior art devices rely on the users themselves to use force to generate instability, rather than having the instability inherent in the device itself.
Some prior art exercise devices utilize fluid, typically water, contained in the device. For example, some prior art devices utilize water as a replacement for a weight, such as a dumbbell filled with water instead of metal or sand (see, for example, U.S. Design Pat. No. D633,155). Another example is “slosh pipes,” depicted in videos currently found on the internet, which are typically homemade water-filled PVC pipes capped at both ends to permanently seal the water inside. Typically, however, such homemade prior art devices are of a size, weight and length (e.g., 4 inches in diameter, 20 pounds with sand and water, and 5-6 feet long) that make it extremely difficult to manage the device and even to grip the device by hand. Indeed, even just the casing (i.e., the PVC pipe) of such prior art devices, before the device is filled with fluid, can weigh 3 or more pounds.
Other known prior art devices allow for the fluid (e.g., water) to be emptied therefrom by the user to reduce the weight of the device during transport and facilitate lighter weight travel. Such devices can then be filled again when the user arrives at his/her desired location to add the weight back to the device (see, for example, U.S. Design Pat. No. D633,155). Other devices use water as a simple way to allow the user to create a desired variable weight device by letting the user fill the device with water to certain markers. Thus, in the known prior art devices, the fluid is merely a means of adding weight to the bar or device and is not included as a necessary functional aspect of the device.
Accordingly, it would be desirable to provide an exercise and/or rehabilitation device which simulates the balance conditions actually encountered in everyday life, which is relatively lightweight and easy to manage and handle, and which includes a fluid element as a necessary functional aspect of the device so as to improve the skill and reflex of the user.